"I'm not talking about you converting! I'm just talking about you going there, once, so you can tell everyone that you did. Look. I quit going too...several years ago...'cause there's no point in me being there...I mean...when you go you'll see what I'm talking about. But I do think you need to go at least once, just to satisfy your mom and so we don't have to keep lying to her. Might as well do it tomorrow and get it over with."
Ruthie remained sitting up, not sure how to respond. Mike continued:
"How you handle your mom is your business. I'm not gonna get involved in that. But I'm not gonna lie to her unless there's a damn good reason. This is not a damn good reason. The next time I see her, she's gonna want to talk about us going to my church, and I don't want to have to make up a bunch of bullshit. Besides, it'll get you off the hook with that Cristina who's looking for you. If you've already gone to my church, you can tell her that and it'll get you out of having to go to hers."
Ruthie finally nodded, because she wasn't able to come up with any arguments to counter Mike's logic. She hated to admit it, but she knew that he was right...it was easier to put in an hour at his church than it was to spend yet more weeks of evasive phone conversations with her mother and dodging Cristina. Besides, from everything he had told her, it sounded like his church was very impersonal and going there would not be a high pressure experience.
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For the second time in less than 24 hours Ruthie put on her green dress, while Mike put on dark pants, a tie, and a sports coat. That was the most formally she had ever seen him dressed. They left very early, driving through thick morning fog to make it in time for the 8:30 service. They pulled up to a large 1960's-style modernistic church located in a neighborhood that was built about the same time. Only about a third of the parking spaces were taken, most of them by luxury sedans such as Town-Cars.
Ruthie noticed that everyone attending church was well-dressed. She also noticed that almost everyone around her were older white people. She looked to see if there were any young people at all, but she only saw a few couples in their 30's and 40's. She did not see anyone college-aged. Nor did she see any children because, as Mike would later explain to her, during the service children attended separate Sunday school.
The inside of the chapel reflected a by-gone era when there were more people attending and Mike's church had a lot more money. The ceiling was inlaid with expensive wood and the windows were modernistic stained glass. The décor was totally different from her mother's church, which had no décor at all apart from a cross and some posters with biblical passages. As the older people entered, they sat down quietly. In the background there was soft organ music.
Ruthie looked around at her bizarre surroundings. The cavernous chapel...the organ music coming from somewhere in the background...and all those old white people just sitting quietly...sort of gave her the creeps. Mike handed her a church program and in a hushed voice explained to her how the service worked, that it would last exactly 55 minutes, it would have three hymns, the reciting of the Lord's Prayer, and the sermon. Ruthie looked at the strange document in her hands, bewildered that a church service could be so carefully preplanned. She vaguely wondered if the service really would follow the program minute-by-minute...but as she looked around at all those old white folks, she figured that none of them was the sort to step out of line and disrupt a schedule.
Sure enough...minute by minute the service followed the program to the letter. Mike was familiar with the hymns and the Lord's Prayer. He sang and recited from memory, but there was no life or spontaneity in what he was doing. There's no life in this place at all, thought Ruthie to herself. This is totally dead...like...really dead...
On their way out Mike briefly talked to one of the assistant pastors, explaining that he had not attended services for so long because he had been in Chicago. He introduced Ruthie as his girlfriend. The pastor was friendly enough, but she could tell that he had no real interest in her. And that was it. As they returned to his car, Mike did not bother to ask her what she thought of his church. He knew that she could not have a positive opinion.
Instead he explained his own experiences with the faith his parents attempted to give him when they were more optimistic and Mega-Mart had not yet ruined their lives. For him there had been no sudden break in his faith, no moment of revelation like the moment Ruthie had experienced. During his last couple of years in high school he simple drifted out of the church, especially after his father lost his business. When he was a senior in high school, he still believed in God, but that belief became vaguer and more ill-defined as the year went by. Of course it did not help that God was of no assistance whatsoever as the Sinclairs were losing their pharmacy. Nor was it any help that as Mr. Sinclair's standing among the local businessmen declined, so did his standing in the church.
Mike commented about the horrible job his church had done attempting to retain younger people like himself. The church did OK keeping young people involved and motivated up through the end of high school, but young singles tended to drop out once they started college and very few ever returned. Younger people either ended up changing over to an evangelical mega-church or, like Mike, they simply drifted away from religion altogether.
"You have to understand something about my church. It's like my dad's business, and like a lot of other things in this country. It's a part of our society that is getting old and dying out. All those old people...once they're gone, the church will be gone too. It'll die with them. My generation got pushed out, 'cause those old people were too worried about themselves to worry about us. I have no reason to go back. And...when we were there today I didn't see anyone from my high school group. I don't know...maybe there's a few left that'll be going to the later service...but I've lost touch so I wouldn't know."
As they discussed their respective religious experiences, Mike and Ruthie were able to understand each other on the issue of religion. Mike did not have the explosive hatred towards organized religion that Ruthie had because his church was not such a domineering presence in his life as he was growing up. No one sought to control him or his mind, but when he and his family drifted away, no one made any real effort to prevent them from leaving.
Ruthie realized that Mike was right about having her see his church, because now she honestly could say that she did go, she could talk about the sermon and the music, and she give a physical description of the place. She was oddly depressed by the experience, nevertheless. There was nothing really offensive about Mike's church...there was no exhortation that the world was about to come to an end, no screaming, no talking in tongues, no interruptions from the audience, no mind-control, no megalomania from the preacher. But still, the place totally creeped-her out. It was just so...dead...just a bunch of old people reciting stuff for no reason other than it was what had been recited for the last 400 years. When she talked to her mother about her experience, she'd have to skip the detail about being surrounded by a bunch of half-dead rich white senior citizens.
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The visit to the church put Mike in a melancholy mood and made Ruthie more reflective. Mike offered to show her the two locations where Sinclair Pharmacy used to be, which she accepted. He first took her to a dilapidated downtown area that appeared to have been built between the 1920's and 1950's. The buildings were mostly abandoned except for a few breakfast places and some "boutiques" that Mike suspected actually were money laundering fronts. He pointed to a corner building and commented that was the first location of Sinclair Pharmacy, where his great-grandfather and grandfather ran the business from the 1930's until the late 1970's.
They drove to a shopping center that had been built in the 1960's but had been remodeled several times since then. Mike explained that the shopping center replaced the traditional downtown area and that the majority of the local businesses had moved there by 1975. Sinclair Pharmacy was one of the last holdouts to leave downtown: Mike's grandfather moved the business to the shopping center in 1979.
Like the downtown area it replaced, it was clear the shopping center had seen better days. Only about half of the storefronts were still occupied: there were two pawn-ships, a cigarette discounter, a second-hand clothing store, a pay-day lender, a liquor store, a store that sold surplus packaged food items, and a clothing donation center. Mike pointed out the spot where Sinclair Pharmacy had occupied one of the larger spaces, which now was occupied by the outpatient services for a drug rehab clinic. Mike observed:
"Still a drug business in this spot...but I guess this is where the growth market is and my dad just got it wrong."
